


Shiny

by KieraElieson



Series: More Than the Sum of Our Parts [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Logan Scores a Big One, Trading, shiny stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 02:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21348568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KieraElieson/pseuds/KieraElieson
Summary: Roman likes shiny things, but how much?A sequel to More Than the Sum of Our Parts
Series: More Than the Sum of Our Parts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537450
Comments: 16
Kudos: 160





	Shiny

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm not sure quite how much I like this. I feel like several things fell a bit flat, but I'm putting it out there anyway!
> 
> You don't have to have read More Than the Sum of Our Parts, but it will probably make more sense if you do. If you don't want to, the most relevant information I can give you is that Roman can turn into a raccoon and has some extra instincts, in a similar way to Deceit and snakes.

Patton had five. Only five of the precious chocolates. He had been given Lindor chocolates. Two red, which were milk chocolate, two deep blue, dark chocolate, and one was a bright gold color. Patton opened the chocolate and popped it in his mouth. He loved white chocolate just as much as he loved milk chocolate, with dark chocolate coming third. 

He kept the chocolate in his mouth, part of him wanting to bite down, and a larger part wanting to savor it. He crumpled the wrapper and put it in his pocket. 

He walked by the kitchen, which was a mess, and Roman who was making himself a snack. 

“Hey, Roman!”

“Oh, hi, Pat.”

“When you’re done, would you mind to pick up in the kitchen a bit?” Patton dropped his wrapper in the trash can. He turned back to look at Roman, who was watching him, indecision on his face as he screwed the lid back onto the jar he was holding. 

“Yeah, sure.”

Patton smiled brightly. “Thank you, Roman!”

Roman returned the smile with his own dramatic flair. “I’ll get a pat-ton of work done!”

Patton squealed at the joke. “You know, I knew there was a reason you were able to conquer so much of the world.

Logan groaned loudly from in the living room.

Patton chuckled on his way out. 

  * •^*^••

As soon as the coast was clear Roman snatched at the foil wrapper. He was determined to replace his collection, and this time he was going to use each one as he got it, rather than waiting until he had the full number. He put it in his pocket and cleaned up the kitchen, which didn’t take all that long for someone of his skill and speed. 

Then he rushed to his room. He pulled out his largest piece of posterboard and his paint. The first thing he did was paint a background of a night sky, and then a large, bare branch in the foreground. This itself took a good hour, since he wanted it to be as close to perfect as possible.

He took the foil wrapper out of his pocket and carefully smoothed it out. Then he ran back to the kitchen and got a piece of tin foil to practice with first. He cut a tiny square, and had to pause again to find the right tool. After searching for a while, he brought two pins and a bottle of glue. He wrapped the tiny piece of foil around the head of the pin, and gently folded out the points. He used the other pin to take a tiny drop of glue from the bottle and place it on the posterboard. Then he set the foil on the glue and carefully pulled the pin out.

It looked like a tiny, cup like flower. Perfect. He did a few more practice ones, placing them in places that, when the work was complete, would be less obvious. Then he cut the wrapper and made the little flowers out of it, placing them in places of honor as the first piece of foil ought to be. 

Roman hung the unfinished work high on the wall, where nothing should be able to crush the delicate flowers. He glanced at the clock, which was now beside the incomplete masterpiece, and realized that he had been working on it for another hour. He had known that it took time to make the tiny, delicate flowers, but not that much. 

Well, every challenge only made the goal more worth reaching! Now, how was he going to get the next piece?

He could always summon a bunch of candies, but that seemed like cheating. Especially since he couldn’t eat very many of them himself. (A princely body had to be maintained) Maybe he could find a way to give them to the other sides and get the wrappers. 

  * •^*^••

“I am so confused.” Virgil said, once his door was shut. 

Princey, Roman Sanders, had just given him, completely unprompted, a bag of candy. 

Maybe Patton had something to do with it? It certainly seemed a more Patton-like thing to do. Unless it was poisoned or something. 

He set the bag on his bed. If he cut one open, would the poison be obvious? 

  * •^*^••

“How did you know?!!” Patton said, clutching the bag to his chest. “These are my favorite!”

Roman chuckled, a bright sparkle in his eye. “I thought I saw you with one earlier, and guessed that you might enjoy some more.”

Patton hugged Roman. “Thank you!”

  * •^*^••

“While I appreciate the gesture, I am not fond of chocolate,” Logan said, trying to decline gently. 

“Oh. That’s fine.” Roman waved the bag out of existence. “Sorry to bother you, specs.”

  * •^*^••

Deceit’s eyes flickered between the bag and the person offering it. 

“You came all the way down here— just to offer me candy?”

“Uh, yeah,” Roman said, shifting his weight slightly. 

Deceit didn’t need to be able to sense lies to see through this one. He leaned out a bit farther from his doorway. “And what do you want in return?”

“What? Nothing. Can’t I give a gift?”

“Liesss,” Deceit said, his tongue flickering out involuntarily. 

Roman put on a dramatically offended face, and opened his mouth to protest, but then stopped. “Fine. I want the wrappers when you’re done.”

Deceit’s mind went immediately to the basket of foil wrappers Roman had given Remus to get him out of the light side. Remus had cut each one into tiny sharp confetti, which he loved to dump over the head of an unsuspecting side. But still, it seemed suspicious, even when he could no longer taste a lie. 

“That’ss all?”

“That’s it!” Roman said, smiling, assured of victory. 

Deceit narrowed his eyes, but accepted the bag. “I make no promisssesss…”

  * •^*^••

It was like a quest! Roman searched the mindscape every day for the wrappers, taking them back to his room to form the flowers with them. The very challenge of doing it without the others knowing made it feel so much more satisfying. 

He stepped back to admire the poster. One bunch of flowers was now outlined, and there were a few other flowers sprinkled around. This was going to take time. And more candy wrappers. Honestly, he was so pleased with the candy wrapper idea. They were almost gem-like in their colors, and the foil was thin and soft, easily shaped, though also easily ruined. He snapped, and a glass case covered the work of art, protecting it from any accidents. 

  * •^*^••

“I’ll take it, you don’t need to get up,” Logan said, gathering up the trash Patton had beside him on his way to the kitchen. 

Roman’s eyes followed him, and soon so did the man. Logan had been noticing that he was acting strangely, but hadn’t thought it to be  _ too  _ strange. Perhaps just a side effect of being in a slow period, at least as far as Creativity was concerned.

Logan tried to ignore him. He reached up into a cabinet with his free arm, distracted enough for the moment that he only thought of his original purpose, retrieving his jar of Crofters. But it wasn’t there. He looked in the fridge. But again, no. 

“Hey, jelly maniac,” Roman said. 

Logan turned to him. He was wearing an infuriating smirk, and holding the Crofters. 

“I’ll trade you,” Roman continued, gesturing towards the handful of trash Logan still held. 

For a moment, Logan frowned, deeply confused. Then, all at once, the pieces clicked together. 

“It’s your raccoon instincts. That’s why you’ve handed out candy to everyone. Candy in bright foil wrappers. It’s also why you’ve been eyeing piles of garbage as if they might contain gold. I see now. Yes, you may have it. Feel free.”

“I-it’s not raccoon instincts!” Roman blustered. “I’ve been creating with them.”

“That does not negate the possibility that your instincts are at play here. Likely combining it with your creativity has only made the impulse stronger, especially since you’ve had less of a creative outlet recently.”

Logan held out his hand for the Crofters, and deposited the trash in Roman’s hand. Roman picked out the foil and dropped the rest in the trash can. And then, Logan had an idea. 

  * •^*^••

“Virgil, have you also received chocolate from Roman?” Logan asked. 

“Yeah, a couple days ago. Did he give you some too? Is it like a new holiday or something?”

Logan waved aside the questions. “I wanted to know if I could have the wrappers when you’ve finished with them. There is an experiment that they may be useful for.”

“What kind of experiment? And didn’t he give you some?”

“He has offered some to me, but at the time I was not conducting the experiment, and saw no use in them.”

“Ah. I haven’t eaten mine either.”

Logan nodded. “And would it be possible for me to have the wrappers?”

“I mean, sure, not like I have a use for them.”

The next day, Logan had a small stack of seven. Now his experiment could really begin. Now he just had to think of something Roman wouldn’t want to give him. 

“Roman, I want your sash.”

“You—What??? Why?” 

“The reason why is immaterial. What matters is that I want your sash and I am willing to give you something in exchange.” Logan held up one of the wrappers, which he smoothed out into a perfect rectangle. 

Roman’s face, which was already comically confused, now had a distinct note of greed in it. “I can conjure you one—“

“No.” Logan interrupted. “I want the one you’re wearing.”

Roman’s face went back to confused. “But why?”

“As I said, the reason why is immaterial.” Logan said, pulling another foil from a different pocket. 

“How many do you have?” Roman asked breathlessly, his eyes widening. 

“At the moment, I have three.” Logan replied, which was true, he had left the others in his room. 

“I’ll give it to you for three,” Roman said, already pulling the sash off. 

Logan completed the trade successfully. As he left, Roman conjured himself a new sash. 

The results were as he had expected. The next step would be to see how far Roman could be pushed to go. He would probably have to get more than four wrappers. 

  * •^*^••

“Roman? Did you need something?”

Roman shuffled, embarrassment clear in every line of his body, if the beet red of his face wasn’t enough to go by. His head snapped up. 

“Logan is the best side. He’s the smartest and always knows the right thing to do. He knows more than we do and we always need his input. You should listen to him more often than you do.”

Then he tried to sink out. 

“Oh, no you don’t!” Thomas said, pulling him back. “What was that all about? Did you lose a bet?”

Roman groaned and slouched onto the couch, covering his face with his hand. “Don’t make this any worse than it has to be, please.”

Thomas summoned Logan. 

Logan was full out  _ giggling _ . He had his hand over his mouth and was hunched over he was laughing so hard. “I-I’m so-sorry, Thomas, this is-is unpro-“ his words were broken up by another round of laughter and Roman groaned again. 

Thomas started laughing despite himself. He was inclined to feel bad for Princey, but it really was funny, and Logan’s laughter was surprisingly contagious. 

“Oh, not both of you!” Roman wailed, sending them both further into hysterics. 

Thomas was distracted enough that he missed Roman sinking out. He’d have to summon him back. 

“Let him—let him have some time,” Logan said, as if he could read Thomas’s mind. Though that was actually very possible. 

“What was all that?” Thomas asked. 

“I can’t. I already laughed at him, if I told you too he really would get upset.”

And so Thomas was curious about it. His curiosity remained, waxing and waning, for about a month, before being sated. 

“I—“ Roman cleared his throat. “I have a present for you.”

Thomas gasped. “A present? That’s so sweet! It’s not even my birthday.”

Roman shrugged, but a smile crept up over his face. He turned to the wall. “So to make sure it gets here alright, can we move some of these?”

“Uh, sure. Is it that big?” Thomas took down a picture. 

“It’s… not very small.”

They cleared the wall and stood back. Roman snapped, and a massive picture hung on the wall. It was a branch of a tree, covered in glittering flowers of all colors, with origami leaves that were a bright metallic green, against a dark night. 

“Roman… this is beautiful.”

Roman swelled up with happiness, and his smile looked ready to split his face. He looked at Thomas, his eyes bright with hope. “You really like it?”

“I do. I really do.” Thomas grabbed Roman in a hug. “It’s amazing. Thank you.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So the prompt for this one was Someone found out that Roman can be swayed with shiny. I feel like I puled that off decently. The big ol' craft he made is possible, but not easy. Once the idea got in my mind, I had to make at least one of the little flowers myself before I wrote him to make it. It worked, but out of four I tried to make, I squished three of them. They're super tiny, and foil squishes easily. Also I was not good at it, so it's not nearly as pretty as I imagined, but I figured Roman has a higher skill level at things like that than I do.


End file.
